Tag Archives: Metalpunk

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Your Fault doesn’t start in the strongest of ways. The opening track to the new album from Gravehuffer contains plenty of powerful riffs, ugly vocals, and furious drumming; but it never quite comes together, with its combination of crust, death metal, and raw punk energy missing the mark. Thankfully, this is an anomaly on an album that is otherwise full of vicious crusty metalpunk, switching between genres at ease, and with songwriting deft that is surprising for music that is so ugly and hard hitting. The first track aside, this is an invigorating listen, and a fine half hour of underground snarl and spit.

Now on to their second album, Ghostblood show no signs of slowing down. There’s a real hunger to this young band that comes through clearly on Honey, I Raised The Dead, an album that’s every bit as fun as you’d hope for from a record named thus. Their brand of thrash draws liberally from metalpunk, with the result being metal that is hugely energetic, racing by at a million miles an hour, packed full of power-chord riffs, blistering leads, and relentless drums. It’s hardly big or clever, but is sure is a hell of a lot of fun.

The appropriately titled 1st by Nottingham newcomers Lindow Moss is one of the best demos I have heard this year. Filled with raw, primal violence and fuck-you attitude, its black metalpunk draws from the same pit of darkness as the likes of Bone Awl and Sump. It is nasty, riff-filled, and utterly lacking in grace – yet, my god, what an onslaught it is. With a bleeding red-red production and atmosphere that suggests everything could collapse at any given moment, this is the spirit of the underground in musical form, full of spit and bile, hideously ugly yet all but impossible to resist.

When people think of black metal and politics, odds are they think of bands who are on the far-right of the spectrum. It’s no surprise. Fascist imagery abounds in black metal, to the extent that it’s considered utterly normal by some, and there’s a long history of some of the big names of the genre espousing authoritarian, prejudiced views; and this is to say nothing of the whole NSBM sub-genre. But recent years have seen more and more bands making explicitly anti-fascist black metal. There’s always been those who have had views we would now recognise as anti-fascist – most notably Summoning – but that’s not always come across in their music. So, here are five bands playing various styles of black metal, where you won’t need to follow up on interviews to know their anti-fascist leanings.

Doesn’t seem that long ago that I was writing lats month’s lot of short reviews. The month has gone so fast! And I don’t think there’s much interesting to say this time around. I’ve not found as much time this month for reviews, but, that’s neither here nor there. Let’s just get to the reviews. This month there’s instrumental stoner/doom from Spore Lord on In The Beginning; blackened death from Nordwitch with their album Mørk Profeti; Mycelium‘s Volume I, an improvised, atmospheric piece of experimental metal; the Reigning Hell demo from Egyptian metalpunks Exgen; and Irish thrash crew Acid Age rage Like A Runaway Combine Harvester In A Field Of Crippled Rabbits. Enjoy!

I mentioned last month how excited I was over SubRosa coming to the UK, but that excitement has been matched this month by the announcement of a new Planes Mistaken For Stars record. I honestly never expected it to ever materalise, ever though the band have been playing shows for years since reforming. There’s few bands I hold in higher regard than those guys, so I’m very excited.

But, that’s for the future. For now, we have Bloodshed Remains offering up some hardcore Peace; Austrian D-beat/hardcore/grindcore band Six Score with Lebensräume; metallic French hardcore bruisers Pallass and their Devotion Of Souls; Yūgen from atmospheric black metal act Ashbringer; UK anti-fascist black metal band Dawn Ray’d with A Thorn, A Blight; and the pumelling split between Sea Of Bones and Ramlord. Oof!

You know what? Summer kinda sucks. Especially when you live in a building old enough to be cold in winter, roasting in summer; but not so old that it has any charm or, well, many redeeming features at all (other than reasonable rent and a decent landlord). This heat is a total downer. The sooner Autumn comes around, the better.

But, whatever. Let’s have some short reviews. This month, we’ve got Kommando and their brand of machinegun punk on Distroyer/Iron Goat Triumph record; The Sound That Ends Creation unleashing hardcore/tech-metal devastation with We Are The Burden; something beautifully different on the split 12″ by Human Hands andThe Blue Period.There’s also melo-death from Skeleton Wolf on their self-titled album, an invitation to the doomy Cult Of Bathory from Yidhra, and glorious black metal from Toska on their self-titled EP.